


I'll See You in My Dreams

by twopinkcarnations



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gaslighting, Isolation, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twopinkcarnations/pseuds/twopinkcarnations
Summary: Michael poses as Eleanor's soulmate during one of the 802 attempts.





	I'll See You in My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [here2observe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/here2observe/gifts).



> Title comes from a song by the same name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAGfp4DIbY
> 
> Lyrics:
> 
> I'll See You In My Dreams  
> Hold you in my dreams,  
> Someone took you out of my arms,  
> Still I feel the thrill of your charms,  
> Lips that once were mine,  
> Tender eyes that shine,  
> They will light my way tonight,  
> I'll See You In My Dreams.

**[1]**

“You’re my soulmate?”

“That’s right! I’m so happy to finally meet you!”

The man, Michael, smiles at her, but there’s something in his eyes that she doesn’t quite trust. But the architect—Vanessa? Valerie?—is standing there, looking just as thrilled as Michael, so she sticks out her hand to greet him and welcome him into their shared home.

“I can’t wait to spend eternity with you, Eleanor.”

**[2]**

The first day there, Michael takes her out for frozen yogurt.

“Isn’t this stuff just the greatest?” he asks her.

She spoons another mouthful into her mouth. It’s mint chocolate chip flavored; her least favorite. She suffers through the taste.

“Vicky told me it was your favorite,” he says.

And she smiles because she doesn’t know what else she’s supposed to do.

**[3]**

She hasn’t been sleeping well since she arrived here, and she wonders when that will get better. She had suffered from years of insomnia on earth, and she had always thought the adage “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” would finally apply to her.

It doesn’t.

Instead, she finds herself pacing. Pacing from one end of her—their—house together. Michael is sound asleep. How does he do it?

 _He belongs here,_ a tiny voice says.

“Shut up,” she hisses.

Michael half wakes up.

“You alright?”

She doesn’t answer.

**[4]**

“Don’t you think it’s odd that we’re the only people here?” she asks.

Michael looks up from his book.

“Vicky told us she was waiting for the right people to join us. You can’t have just anyone join any neighborhood. It has to be a right fit.”

And that makes sense, she supposes. But she misses talking to someone other than Michael and occasionally Vicky.

“Doesn’t it bother you that we’re the only ones here?”

Michael rises from his armchair and walks over to her. He hugs her tightly, and it makes her feel like bolting.

“Honey, who needs other people when you’ve got your soulmate?”

**[5]**

She finally falls asleep one night, but she is plagued by nothing but nightmares.

Eleanor only remembers one of them with any sort of clarity.

A man she’s never met before rushes up to her and starts speaking to her in rapid French. She has no idea what he’s saying, but he seems scared or worried. He keeps looking over his shoulder as though something were after him.

“I don’t know—I don’t know what you’re saying. I can’t understand you.”

He looks so sad that she feels her heart break.

Her pillow is wet when she wakes up.

**[6]**

Michael has gotten into the habit of disappearing, and Eleanor doesn’t mind because it gives her a chance to clear her head.

She’s started taking long walks. Every day they get longer and longer, but she can never find the end of the neighborhood.

It reminds her of a movie she watched once as a kid when her parents had decided to let the T.V. babysit her while they went out to get drunk and high. The movie was in black and white, and the streets all lead back into each other. There was no escape.

 **[7]**  
  
She falls asleep and dreams of an Amazonian-esq woman in a flowy gown kissing her. She wakes up for the first time since dying feeling well-rested.

“It’s so good to see you smile,” Michael says.

“It feels good to smile,” she admits.

She gets dressed in front of the mirror, so happy to finally feel happy.

“Congratulations, beautiful,” she says, finger-gunning at her reflection.

Eleanor hears glass shatter in the kitchen, and she breaks out into a cold sweat.

“What happened?”

“Nothing!”

She doesn't go into the kitchen right away, but there's still quite a scene when she does.

There’s so much blood, Michael’s blood, everywhere.

"Can you give me a hand with this?"

Her stomach heaves.

**[8]**

One day, she walks for so far and for so long that she decides to sleep under the shade of a tree rather than try to get home.

She wakes up in her bed with no memory of how she got there.

**[9]**

Eleanor pushes her latest cup of mint frozen yogurt away from herself.

How could there have _possibly_ been _blood?_

**[10]**

She paces.

She paces.

She paces.

“Eleanor, you need to sleep.”

“I know.”

She doesn’t sleep for three days straight.

**[10.5]**

“I think I’d like my own room,” she says.

“Oh?”

“I know my pacing bothers you, and I don’t want to keep you up.”

Michael grins.

“How lucky I am to have a soulmate like you! You’re always looking out for me.”

**[11]**

It’s one of those days where Michael has disappeared, so Eleanor decides to go see a movie. There are, quite literally, a million categories to choose from. She searches by location.

“Florida” is a place that jumps out at her. She’s never been. She has no idea why, but it feels like the right choice.

She had never caught _Magic Mike_ when it was in theaters, so she’s glad to get the opportunity now.

The men are so hot. Like the mailmen she used to think would be all over her slice of Heaven. It’s a stupid movie, but she loves it.

She watches it three times in a row before walking home.

“Have fun today, dear?” Michael asks.

She nods.

**[12]**

“I’m your soulmate, Eleanor!”

“Then respect my fucking boundaries! Don’t fucking touch me like that ever again!”

The curse feels weird on her tongue. As though she hadn’t said it in a century. It had been her favorite swear when she was alive. Why does it feel so foreign?

Michael angrily gets redressed.

“What’s the point of having a soulmate that you can’t even fuck?” he asks.

She runs to the bathroom and hops into the shower with her torn clothes still clinging to her body. She screams and screams and screams.

**[13]**

“Eggs?” he asks.

“Sure.”

He standing at the stove with an apron tied around his waist like he was Cary Grant or something. She sits at the table in her sweats, watching him make breakfast like nothing had happened.

He serves her.

“Eleanor, I’m very sorry about last night. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re right.”

She takes a bite. It’s like chewing rubber.

Eleanor doesn’t see him again for a week.

**[14]**

“Where do you even go?” she asks.

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.”

Suddenly, she finds herself racing across the room and embracing him. She hadn’t had a single soul to speak to for an entire week. The neighborhood was still a ghost town. She couldn’t remember the last time she even _heard_ from Vicky.

“I love you, Eleanor. You know that, don’t you? You know I’d never mean to hurt you.”

She pulls away and sees she’d stained his jacket with her tears and her snot.

She doesn’t believe him, but she nods.

What choice does she have?

**[15]**

“How long do you think we’ve been here?” she asks.

“Oh, let’s see. Well, in earth terms, maybe a few years. Why?”

Years?

As in, more than one?

“No reason.”

**[16]**

She has the dream again.

Well, it’s technically a nightmare, but it’s the tamest nightmare. It’s the one with the young Frenchman who always seems so frantic and nervous.

“I don’t understand you!” she laments. “Please, help me understand.”

He keeps speaking in rapid-fire French, pointing and gesturing. But Eleanor had never been good at charades—and anyway, you had to have friends to play charades—so she misses his message.

“Tell me your name,” she says. Because he seems to be able to understand her perfectly, and she desperately wants to know.

“Chidi,” he says, clasping her hand between his.

His touch is warm. So, so warm.

Suddenly, she is awake, sitting bolt upright in bed. She jumps up from her covers and searches the whole house for pen and paper, but she finds none.

~~Michael had just been journaling before they retired for the evening. How was that possible?~~

By the time she gives up, she has forgotten the name, but his touch lingers on.

**[17]**

“I think I’d like to learn French,” she says, grabbing a language book off the shelf of the library.

Michael gives her a funny look.

“But we both speak English.”

“Well, I always wanted to learn.”

Michael pats her cheek.

“Whatever will make you happy.”

**[17.5]**

Every time Michael vanishes, she pulls out her French book.

She worries that one day, she will try to dig out of her mattress and find that Michael had destroyed it while she slept.

She shudders at the thought of Michael watching her sleep.

**[18]**

Michael takes her out to dinner one night.

“And wear something cute,” he had said.

So she does because there’s nothing else to do except what he wants to do.

He makes bedroom eyes at her from across the table.

“No, Michael.”

“Oh come on. I’ve been good. Haven’t I earned it by now?”

Fuck, who knew heaven would be so much work.

**[19]**

It takes a few weeks, but when she dreams of the man again, this time, she is ready.

“Michael is a demon!” Chidi—God, his name is Chidi!—“He separated us into four different neighborhoods! He doesn’t want us to know about each other!”

Eleanor’s eyes bug out of her skull.

“I remember you!” she says in sloppy French.

Chidi looks so relieved. He supports himself by bracing his hands on his knees.

“Oh thank god. Thank god, Eleanor.”

“How?” she asks. “How is this a thing?”

“Janet,” he says.

And fuck, that name is familiar too. She knows that name!

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you!” she shouts.

She wakes up.

**[20]**

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

Eleanor grabs the book from his hand and hurls it across the room where it hits the wall with a deafening thud.

“Eleanor, what…?”

“This,” she says. “is the Bad Place.”

Michael grins, laughs, and stands.

He towers over her, but she’s not scared.

“Impressive,” he says.

Michael snaps his fingers.


End file.
